Edge of Dark (48 page)

Everyone in the room stared at him.

“I can't. I can't even bring them this. This is all things we're giving. What are you going to give us?”

“Why, the right to become like us, of course.”

Was it joking? “How about something we want, like free access to your starship technology?”

Yi whispered in his ear.

Charlie added, “And the information we need to develop navigation AI's as good as yours.”

“No.”

His anger had built enough that he said, “I need a break.”

“There isn't enough time,” Jhailing said.

“What do you mean?” Charlie asked. “What's happening?”

“A Next ship will be in orbit within a few hours. We should finish this conversation and get to Manna Springs.”

Charlie stood up, pacing, restless. “I have no idea if I can even sell this deal, or if I have the authority to even have the conversation.”

“If not you, then who?” the robot asked.

“Damn it.”

Davis said, “Surely we can take a
short
break. We'll be back soon.” He looked at Charlie. “Jason and Yi should stay here.”

Charlie nodded. If they could talk to the Jhailing, then they could let it listen. “I'm sorry,” he told them.

To his surprise, Jason answered. “I understand. We are no longer you.”

“But I appreciate your help very much,” Charlie said.

Davis led Amfi and Charlie out of the room and down a long corridor to an empty cavern hung with bright and colorful tapestries that depicted nature in one form or another. He noticed waving grasses decorated with small blue flowers, a mountain and sunrise, a seascape. “These are beautiful. Are they gleaner art?”

Davis smiled. “Some are generations old.” He looked proud.

Amfi came up to Charlie and stood very close to him. She took his hand in hers and looked up at him, her eyes full of gratitude and worry. “This is the most dangerous time for Lym in either of our lives. Perhaps ever. What you're doing matters. Thank you.”

He stared at her, feeling an angry lump in his throat and sick to his stomach. “I don't know enough to do this.”

“No one does.”

Davis observed, “The soulbots have thought of details that we would not even have understood we could ask about.”

Amfi asked, “How much do you trust them?”

“A lot,” Charlie replied. “But not completely.” He still paced, only now he had more room to do it in. “By the way, I'm certain that your
captive
is no such thing. He's a guest.”

“He would have to get through three sets of doors to get out.”

“I bet it would take him five minutes.”

Amfi shook her head. “Don't start beating your breasts, either of you. Everyone in this room loves Lym. This matters. The deals we make today will save lives.”

“And take some,” Charlie snapped. “Unless we can move whole populations of wild animals.”

Amfi looked at him calmly. “We can't make the Next go away.”

She was right. He took a deep breath and turned away, trying to get composed, to think. The air smelled of rock and silence and ghosts who might have once lived here. “Okay. I know. Can we pull up a map? In there? One we control? I want a record that we can refer to in town.”

“Yes,” Davis said. “Is there anything else you need?”

Yes. Time. To know he had the authority to do this. To have anybody else here doing it, except that if he weren't doing it, he would wish he was in here doing his best to protect the things he loved the most. What did he want? A thousand things. Manny. Nona to talk it over with. “I was just trapped on a spaceship for a very long time. I want sky.”

Davis led them out, and they stood between the rock wall and the waterfall. The roar of it calmed him, as if the water took some of his unease and stress and sent it plunging into the lily-lined pool fifteen meters or so below them.

He shivered in the wet air, grateful for the bracing cold. All around the valley, fall colors mixed with dark greens. The air smelled faintly of impending snow.

Droplets from the waterfall slowly soaked his hair as Charlie breathed and breathed and breathed.

CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

NONA

Nona stood beside Dr. Nevening, who shifted his weight from one foot to another with an air of impatience. She leaned over to him. “Are you okay?”

“We're running out of time.”

Before she could respond, General Finlay bellowed, “Form a line. Form a single line.” Chaos ensued as captives tried to stay together and guards ordered them to separate. Nona stuck close to the front of the line, near Satyana and the Historian. The others were spread in groups of two or three and separated by soldiers. “Listen up!” the general yelled. “We've got word that part of our planned route might not be safe. We'll be going a different way, which will take longer.”

The Futurist asked, “Why can't we stay here?”

“There are far more people to protect you at our base, sir. We wouldn't want to risk our future.”

Nona groaned inwardly at the awkward pun.

“Move out!” the general called, his two-word sentence sounding like it ended in an exclamation point. He stood by the door as the first of his soldiers filed out, and he was still standing there as she and Satyana crossed the threshold. Satyana hesitated for moment and caught his eye. “Thank you.”

He beamed.

As soon as they were far enough past him that he wouldn't overhear, Nona whispered “What were you thanking him for?”

“Thinking I'm grateful and compliant.”

Nona laughed and felt a tiny bit better.

They walked, the soldiers' boots making more noise and clatter than any of the captives' shoes. Twice, Nona spotted moving ships outside of windows, and once she glimpsed a line of people outside of a ferry lock that they passed near. Since they were separated from the Historian, she stayed with Satyana. She lost her sense of direction as they walked up one corridor after another and passed from one habitat bubble to another. They were mostly in offices or warehouses. Occasionally, sunlight brightened a hallway through a bubble window, sometimes softened by a shade. Nona struggled to stay alert. Her feet had started to swell, and her thigh muscles ached from the unaccustomed exercise. She took out one of the energy gels she had purloined from the food table and sucked on it. It tasted bland and somewhat awful, but it helped a little.

It felt like they'd been marching all day, although it couldn't be later than afternoon, since she still saw the sun through shades from time to time. They were in a long hallway full of doors to offices and storerooms when Satyana slapped her on the back. “Left,” she hissed. “Run!”

Adrenaline shocked her system and she obeyed, turning left, almost bumping into Dr. Nevening who held a very small stunner in his fist. He looked triumphant. On the ground in front of him, a soldier lay prone in the boneless sleep of the stunned.

To their right, a dimly lit corridor curved away from the wider one they were in. She sprinted for it.

The Historian raced ahead of her, faster than she had expected him to be. She had to work hard to stay on his heels, Satyana right behind her. Additional footsteps followed them, fleeing feet rather than chasing feet. They weren't the same irritating thump of boots she'd been hearing the last few hours.

Pipes and cables hung above her head. They must be racing through the utility guts of a segment of the station rather than the living quarters.

Every breath felt like a knife in her lungs. In spite of the pain, Nona kept running, looking for someone familiar. Surely there was a plan?

The corridor opened up in front of them and became a cargo bay, filled with shadows and huge boxes.

Someone grunted behind them and fell, probably stunned. Fresh adrenaline drove Nona faster. Her breath screamed in her ears, a high wheeze.

Dr. Nevening stopped abruptly and she ran into him.

Hands grabbed her. Unfamiliar, a little rough. A voice whispered in her ear. “Run with me.” She couldn't place it. A glance showed a man in a uniform, but not Diamond Deep military. She didn't recognize him.

She and the uniformed man dodged cargo containers and maintenance bots. She made a flying count, catching glimpses of people as she ran. She was pretty sure there were six in their group now—all of the others must have been caught or gone a different way. She and the Historian and Satyana and three people in uniforms that she didn't recognize.

They rounded a corner to the rumble of a low-throated engine. Her benefactor rushed her into a small ship behind the doctor, with Satyana behind her. The hatch slammed shut and one of the uniformed men started giving the ship verbal commands.

They took off with no suits and no safety lessons and no seat belts.

The pilot wore the insignia of Gunnar Ellensson's shipping company.

CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

CHRYSTAL

Chrystal ran. She only knew a few routes on the ship: she had to turn and trust and calculate and hope. She tried a maintenance corridor, but it didn't go far and didn't have a second door. She retraced her steps. The corridor was still empty. She ran on, her footsteps almost soundless.

Two doors led nowhere but into offices.

Traps.

As she passed a corridor, someone shouted. She picked up pursuers. She left them behind shortly, but others would come, others who knew the ship better.

Surely she raced under and around cameras; she wasn't fast enough to be invisible. The blue dress probably wasn't helpful.

She shouldn't have run. Except now she could die running instead of in court. Maybe she wouldn't see it coming, wouldn't know it was about to happen before it did.

Even with so much of her attention on speed and safety, other parts of her processed her choices.

Running gave her energy. The more she ran, the faster she could run.

It hadn't been smart. She should have taken the high road, gone to court, and become a martyr. After all, she was on a spaceship, in a closed ecosystem. She couldn't run forever with no place to go. But they were going to kill her one way or the other. She could do humanity more good if she died publicly. The Next, too, for that matter.

They were both her people. Next and the humans from the Deep, both hers. Both better than the Shining Revolution.

Chrystal thought of her mom, and of touching her. Maybe she would be happier with this; she would know for sure that her daughter was dead. She pushed the thought away, unable to afford it.

Best to head toward the outer edge of the ship. Cargo would be there. Hiding places.

She had learned to read the directional symbols enough to be sure she moved outward.

Two more corridors, each turn frightening for its blindness.

The third turn was a T. She chose the right turn and skidded and jerked to an ungainly stop in front of three people crouched on the floor, pointing weapons at her.

She could jump over them, but there were more behind them, and then more.

It wouldn't do to hurt anyone. Even now.

She turned to flee again. Stopped. A single man, the red-headed one who had teased her about being a sex-bot, stood with a weapon pointed at her. His breathing sounded sharp and ragged and his face glowed red with exertion. She hadn't heard his footsteps, so he must have run to this place and gotten behind her.

He smiled.

The corridor she had come down might still be empty. She twisted toward it.

Heat cut into her foot, pain signals racing up her spine and exploding in her head. She fell into the wall, barely able to hold herself up, flashes of agony going off inside her so intensely she had to struggle to keep her balance. She damped her pain sensors, gaining slight relief. She glanced down at her hurt foot. It had partly separated, a thick gash essentially hamstringing her. Lasers?

She was going to die. If she couldn't run, she would die now. Now. Now. Dead. Jason. Yi. Now.

Single-sentence terrors filled her head.

She had been through too much to die like this, to die by her own fucking people.

There were no Next here to save her.

The Next might not care enough about her to save her anyway.

She'd never see Jason or Yi again.

She couldn't run, but she could balance on one foot. She did.

The man who had teased her—who had just shot her in the foot—rounded the corner, whooping.

He was celebrating hurting her!

Her movements had returned to virtual slow motion, her brain picking up speed as she panicked. One of his arms came close to hers and she reached out, still balanced on one foot. She grabbed the arm, her fingers digging into his bicep muscle, her arm pulling with all of her strength, using his own momentum to send him past her and down the narrow corridor.

He screamed.

She started to fall, tried to keep looking at him.

She had made another mistake. She was no warrior and she was stupid. Too hard. She'd thrown him too hard.

His body kept going. Farther than she would have thought possible. Her right hand hit the floor as her fall continued, still in slow motion, the hand bouncing slowly and her head moving the opposite direction. Up.

Her eyes were straight forward, so she had a direct view as he hit the opposite wall ten meters or so down the corridor, head first.

She kept falling forward, something metal in one wrist giving way and a sharp crunch telling her she had hurt something. Her head had now twisted back, moving against her will to look at the floor, which came up at her.

She heard the hard impact of his head against the wall, the crunch of bone as it broke, the thud as his body hit.

A moment of silence, full of import.

Her other hand—the one she'd thrown him with—finally found the ground and she used her momentum and her good foot to push upward.

The man's body hit the far side of the corridor on the bounce and slid down the wall.